The move’s on us: Students leave Terry, will return to new Lander Hall

Student Heather Huizenga gets ready to leave her Terry Hall room, having packed her belongings in boxes. When she comes back from holiday vacation to begin winter quarter, her belongings will await her in a room in the new Lander Hall.Mary Levin

Students living in the University of Washington’s Terry Hall will get a new home after the holidays without doing any moving – that part’s on the house, you might say.

After housing UW students for six decades since its 1953 opening, the well-worn Terry Hall is being closed and its 600-some student residents relocated to the new Lander Hall opening nearby. (Terry Hall still has a few adventures in store, though — more on that below.)

And while students are used to schlepping their belongings from one place to the next, for this holiday-timed move all they had to do was pack. The Boyce Moving Company, hired by the UW Housing & Food Services Office, is taking care of the rest.

Terry Hall farewell event
5-7 p.m. Jan. 16

The Housing & Food Services Office invites the campus community to celebrate and bid farewell to Terry Hall, 1101 NE Campus Parkway. There will be informational displays, self-guided tours and refreshments. You can even leave a goodbye note.

The students had to be out of Terry by Saturday, Dec. 14, and the movers started working the next day. When the students return to school on Jan. 4, 2014, they’ll find their boxed belongings — and even the contents of their closets — waiting in assigned rooms in the new Lander Hall.

“They’re pretty excited to be able to do this,” said Susan Sherbak, Terry Hall resident director. “Many of them picked their rooms in Terry knowing they’d be able to move to the new Lander.”

Computer science sophomore Heather Huizenga gave the process a good review as she prepared to exit her Terry Hall room for the holidays with a hamper of laundry to do at her Bothell family home over the break.

“It wasn’t too bad,” she said. “You just shove everything in boxes.”

Student Ben Ferrara packs up his room in preparation for moving to the new Lander Hall. Since the building is soon to be closed, he and roommate Evan McAuley were allowed to paint a Seahawks logo on their wall.Mary Levin

The same was true of freshman roommates Ben Ferrara and Evan McAuley, though with an extra twist: They were allowed to paint a huge Seahawks logo on the wall of their room in water-based paint.

And since the room rate for the new Lander is a bit more than for the old Terry — which the students knew when they signed up — the two roommates said they also like the $500 “inconvenience credit” that the housing office will apply to their account after their move is completed.

It’s all part of the UW’s ongoing development of the West end of campus. The new Lander Hall will feature big rooms with configurable furniture, lots of windows for natural light and a new permanent restaurant to replace the Eleven O1 Café in the old Lander Hall.

“Our primary mission was to make this as seamless for the students as possible,” said Josh Gana, assistant director for facilities and operations for Housing & Food Services. “To give them the best service — and let them focus on academics and not worry about their stuff.”

Then early in 2014, Terry Hall will have a few final adventures before it is demolished to make way for the new Maple and Terry residential halls.

The 11-floor building will become a training structure for area fire and police departments, who will bring in bomb squads, K-9 units, SWAT teams and more before the building is brought down slowly over the course of a few months.

Gana reiterated that moving boxes on behalf of the current Terry Hall residents
“reflects our values of really supporting students in any way possible.”